At The District, you can get an unsatisfactory evaluation

...be offered $15,000 AND get an honorable dismissal. Eymarde Lawler and Michelle Frakes did (they declined the $15,000). Take a look at the lawsuit below that was filed on August 28, 2012.

Discharged teachers offered deal
District 150 to give educators $15,000, resignation agreement

Five tenured Peoria School District 150 teachers discharged last spring because of unsatisfactory evaluations will receive $15,000 each and be allowed to resign retroactively. District 150 board members approved the resignation agreement Monday.

The agreement was a response, in part, to charges that the district used elements of the state's landmark education reform laws, known as Senate Bill 7, to dismiss teachers unfairly.

The law's major sponsors, state Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, and Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora, visited Peoria in May to discuss how the district was implementing elements of the law related to evaluations and teacher seniority rights.

Under Senate Bill 7, teachers with seniority are no longer automatically the first rehired when districts lay off staff members.

Two teachers, Michelle Frakes and Eymarde Lawler, rejected the settlement and have filed lawsuits against the district. "They will lose," Eisenhammer said.

He acknowledged the new law will have harsh results for some teachers. However, the district and the union still are working on alternatives, he said. Source

Union Lawsuit

Discrimination lawsuit filed against District 150

Look around Peoria, you will see black folks unemployed, getting passed over for opportunities, not getting jobs because our hair doesn't look "just so"; being the first laid off from their jobs, yet you never hear about any of them suing for discrimination. I've said it before and I'll say it again... it's amazing to me how other folks seem to have no problem finding an attorney that will represent them in discrimination lawsuits. This statement is not to take anything away from Mrs. Lawler's suit, I'm just saying. Anyhow...

At Monday's BOE meeting Terry Knapp said:

... and now:

Tenured teacher who was fired from District 150 files lawsuit

One of the tenured Peoria School District 150 teachers fired this spring because of an unsatisfactory evaluation has filed a discrimination lawsuit in federal court, claiming the district failed to consider her disabilities before she was dismissed.

Eymarde Lawler, then a special education teacher at Trewyn School's Day Treatment Program, says, according to the lawsuit, that her unsatisfactory evaluation stemmed from post-traumatic stress disorder and other disorders brought on after she witnessed two gunshot victims immediately after an attempted murder near Trewyn in August 2011 and after she was seriously injured by students.

A week after the shooting, she was assaulted by a student at Trewyn. Suffering from a concussion, she had to be taken from the school by ambulance. Her rotator cuff was injured after an assault by a student in February.

Lawler is one of 10 tenured teachers fired in the wake of new state regulations that allow school districts to bypass seniority rights in work force reductions. So far, she is the only one to file a lawsuit.

Lawler and her attorney, Richard Stegall, charge that the district ignored medical recommendations to transfer her to a classroom of students with less violence-prone disabilities, which forms the basis of the lawsuit.

The school district's failure to accommodate her disability resulted in her unsatisfactory evaluation, Steagall said. The lawsuit also alleges the district retaliated against Lawler for reporting her disability and requesting a transfer.

Lawler had been employed by District 150 for 10 years, gaining tenure after three, which gave her sufficient seniority to avoid the layoff, according to the suit. She had worked at Trewyn for one year.

Lawler, who earned $56,000 a year, is asking to be reinstated to her job as a tenured teacher with back pay, benefits and $1 million in compensatory damages.Source